Join the Conversation

ICYMI: Local drive-ins go digital

Craig Wolf, Poughkeepsie Journal 3:04 p.m. EDT July 29, 2014

People at the Amenia Drive-In Theater enjoy the 8:30 pm showing of "Earth to Echo" Thursday from the back of their cars. The drive-in was opened by Four Brothers Pizza, which is located adjacent to their restaurant on Route 22 in Amenia.(Photo: Spencer Ainsley/Poughkeepsie Journal)

The drive-in movie business is a relic of the past and is dead, right?

The huge screen of the Overlook Drive-in provides everyone with a good view of the movie in this June 2005 photo.
(Photo:
Journal file photo
)

Far from it. In Dutchess County, it's in a revival. There's a new drive-in in Amenia, and two long-surviving ones, in Hyde Park and LaGrange, have bought themselves a new lease on life.

It's a case of go digital or die.

Barry Horowitz decided to let the family business live on. He upgraded the Overlook Drive-in Theatre on DeGarmo Road, LaGrange, and the Hyde Park Drive-in Theatre, Route 9, by installing digital projection equipment last year to replace the old film gear.

It cost about $80,000 per venue to switch to digital equipment. But it's necessary to play new movies, which will no longer be released on physical film. The distribution industry has switched. Horowitz said he was notified two summers ago that 35 mm film reel distribution would cease by the end of 2013 and after that, movies will arrive on digital drives.

The equipment is different. For the distributors, it's cheaper to make and ship digital copies than bulky film reels.

John Stefanopoulos, the manager of the Amenia Drive-In Theater, discusses the reasons why Four Brothers Pizza Inn decided to build a drive-in movie theater adjacent to their restaurant on Route 22.

"But it's worth it," Horowitz said. "The customers love it."

"It's doing very well," said Horowitz, who is pleased with his new technology. "The picture is outstanding; the sound is outstanding."

"We were shocked, when we put it in, compared to 35 mm. You can start just about when it's going to get dark," he said, because the picture is significantly brighter. The Overlook Drive-in runs 6,500 watts of light to fill a 110-foot-wide screen.

The Hyde Park Drive-in was opened in 1949 by Sidney and Ida Cohen, who added Overlook in 1955. Horowitz married into the family and now manages the cinemas.

It's a seasonal business, with only six months of good-enough weather. "And only three months are lucrative," he said. He decided to seek independent financing so he could skip the deals offered by film companies. "You become married to them," he said.

Movies on the menu

In Amenia, the owners of Four Brothers Pizza Inn on Route 22 have invested about $100,000 to create and equip a drive-in screen right next to the dining patio. This venue opened informally a year ago using old film projection equipment, said John Stefanopoulos, a manager at the site. They didn't even charge moviegoers. But then the company upgraded to digital gear for a grand opening on May 2.

"It's going very well," said Stefanopoulos. "It's become very popular. We have people who have made trips from hours away," including metropolitan-area tourists looking for a day in the country. "It's giving a little bit of buzz over here to the area."

It's a small facility as drive-ins go, with a 55-foot screen and space for about 125 cars, plus some outside seating including the restaurant's patio.

The restaurant business and movies are a great combination, Stefanopoulos said. Restaurant clientele now have another reason to come. And moviegoers have food nearby with a restaurant's full menu, from appetizers to entrees, complete with carhop service and a free windshield cleaning, if needed. Plus, there's a snack bar specifically for the drive-in, with the usual fare of popcorn, soda, candies and ice cream.

"On the weekends, we have to turn cars away," Stefanopoulos said. As for the restaurant business, the movies have been a boon. "It's increased revenues significantly from past years in terms of food service late at night."

Done with mirrors

How does digital projection work? And is it actually better?

"The light is very strong and cuts through a lot of the outdoor elements including haze and low fog. You're actually getting a much better image on the screen," said David Paolini, spokesman for Christie Digital Systems, which claims the largest market share of digital theater projectors.

"There's no degradation to the image," he added. It's the same whether the movie has been run once or a thousand times, he said. "Film burns out." Celluloid film eventually degrades and accumulates damage, forcing distributors to replace it. A full movie can require several reels and the use of large platters to feed the film in and out of the projector.

In celluloid film projection technology, a strong light shines through the film and out a lens, casting an image on the screen.

A digital movie is contained on an electronic storage device, or drive, that is about the size of an external hard drive that one might have as a backup for a home computer. "It's the size of your hand," Paolini said. Satellite and fiber-optic transmission can also be used to deliver movies.

Digital projection uses no film at all. The digital stream of data coming out of the drive is similar to what happens when you watch a TV show or a movie streamed online to a computer.

The data stream drives a "digital light processing" chip, a type of microelectronics that can contain moving parts, known in the chip world as a "micro-electro-mechanical system."

Made by Texas Instruments, this DLP chip has 8.8 million mirrors on a device you could hold in your hand. These microscopic mirrors correspond to pixels in the image. Each mirror can flick to control the amount of light. There are three such chips, one for each primary color — red, green and blue.

Light from the lamp is reflected off these chips and through a lens onto the screen.

Digital or bust

Many in the movie industry feared the need to convert to digital would be the death knell for drive-ins, but drive-in operators are finding creative ways to afford the switch, The Associated Press reports.

Drive-in movie theater operators say more than 200 of the remaining 348 drive-ins in the country have made the expensive conversion to digital, which typically costs more than $70,000. Theater owners say conversions escalated quickly in 2013 and will help keep the drive-ins in business for now.

Some drive-ins are raising money using crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter while others are taking advantage of financing programs or renting out their theaters as flea markets during off-hours.

It's a story that's playing out at drive-ins all over the country, where conversion to digital is the key to survival, said John Vincent Jr., president of the United Drive-In Theatre Owners Association.

Even older movies are difficult to obtain on film because many repertory companies have gone digital, said Vincent, noting that people in the industry expect this season to be "the last summer of film."

These days, moviegoers in 44 states can take in a movie from the comfort of their own vehicles, according to the United Drive-In Theatre Owners Association. New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania have the most drive-ins, with nearly 30 each; Indiana has 20 and California, 17. Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Louisiana, North Dakota and Wyoming are the only states without them.